A walk of contrasts, taking in a hidden lake and a magical wood.
After the heat of the weekend, it was surprisingly chilly when I set off towards Homey Bridge this morning. More than a t-shirt's worth of wind was blowing, but warmer, from the south-west again, after the recent strong cold easterlies.
The Homey Bridge lane was deserted - no Monday morning dog walkers out yet. I turned right after the ford and up the Stoke Tye road. I crossed over the main road on to the back lane towards Nayland, which is too narrow for any travellers to pass, even if only one of them is driving a vehicle. Just as the road goes steeply downhill, I had to climb on to the high, muddy bank and half-dangle from an overhanging branch to give way to a white van, only to be told by the pleasant young driver that there was a tractor coming after him 'in about five minutes'. That sounded like quite a long time to me, but not wanting to be forced to repeat my gibbon impression on the steeper part of the hill, I waited at the junction with the even smaller back lane towards Stoke-by-Nayland for the tractor to appear, which it did about 10 seconds later. It filled the entire road with huge black tyres and terrifying diesel noises.
Going down the steep hill, I spotted another oyster shell in the soil in the bank. I have found one here once before and have also found a couple more in other places locally. I wonder whether they are fossils (they are crumbly and very white, so are clearly old), or whether they are the remains of some historic method of improving the soil. Maybe they are simply the debris from some farm worker's lunch in a previous century when oysters were a cheap food for many, although it seems strange to find them so far from the coast.
Right at the bottom of the hill, over the bridge and on to the new road towards Beacham's Farm. This used to be a narrow, muddy track but is now surfaced with course gravel to enable access to the building site at the old farm house. The new, black, barn-like structure seems to be nearly complete now. The last time I walked past, huge wooden roof joists were just being lifted into place by crane. They were an impressive sight, but are now covered by a tiled roof which seems commonplace by comparison.
I continued on the track beside the golf course, alert to the possibility of a stray lethal missile every time I heard the metallic thwack of club on ball, glad of the protection of the substantial hedge of shrubs and mature trees. This is a designated bridle way and soon I had equine company. A bay horse eyed me suspiciously as it walked past me in the other direction. Its rider did the same.
Straight on at the end of the bridle way and into the road to Plough Lane. Long and perfectly straight, this might be a Roman road. I found the first stag beetles of the summer just before the junction with the A134: a pair, she lifeless, him struggling. They are such improbable creatures and live such secret, hidden lives that it's hard to think of them as mere insects. I gave him a hand getting off his back and into the grass at the side of the road.
I crossed the A134 and took a footpath I had not previously used, wending my way past the 'community woodland' and into the maze of yellow brick houses in streets with twee names. In the 1980s, when this estate was built, it seemed to be the thing to include covenants banning front garden enclosures. As a result, the estate looks as though it belongs in suburban north America, rather than rural Suffolk. I sought out and admired, as I have many times before, one exceptional front garden, tended by a devoted lady gardener, which is astounding in its beautiful use of space and choice of plants. It beckons like an oasis and shows what can be done, even in such bland surroundings.
I followed the High Street to Lock's Lane, where houses with a more individual character, predating the estate, enjoy proper front gardens, with hedges and fences. A small black and white cat had made itself a shady cave under a towering cliff of privet. I tried to take his photo, but he came purring out to meet me and I lost the pose.
I took the permissive path after the track at the end of Lock's Lane and followed it round to the reservoir marked on the OS map. I had never come this way before and was surprised to find that the 'reservoir' was actually a rather lovely, natural-looking small lake, shimmering almost turquoise where it was not clogged with floating masses of dark green algae. A shoal of fish, about 10cm long, with two red spots on their bottom fins (rudd?), had crowded all in one place by a bench, perhaps waiting for a picnicking benefactor.
I walked right round the lake twice, admiring the way it changed with the aspect and the angle of the sun, before heading off down the path towards Ager Fen.
The landscape is very different here: open, like clearings in a wood, with silver birch and young ash. Mysterious dried, dead trunks speak of some previous calamity, maybe a fire. Through Ager Fen, with its tame, labelled paths and on to the Assington road. By now it was hot, so I decided to stay on the road up to Assington, rather than take the longer track round Spouse's Wood. I walked past a farmhouse with a traditional farm yard and a romantic ramshackle cart lodge. It used to have some even more ramshackle outbuildings, but these have been beautifully restored into two holiday cottages, named after the old fig tree and quince tree which still grow in their gardens.
I took the path through the ripening barley field, dodging to avoid being drenched by the huge arc of water spraying from the irrigation system on to the adjacent crop of strong-smelling onions. Through Assington village, where a building spree seems to be happening (there are three new developments in progress) and up past the church and the former mansion to the old lime walk. These enormous mature trees must once have been planted to grace the entrance drive to the house, but now find themselves stranded either side of a wide green walk. At this time of year, they throw out an astonishing perfume.
At the end of the lime walk is a particularly grim, straight part of the A134, where the speed and noise of the hurtling traffic (what, really is the hurry?) strikes a contrast with the static peace of the lime trees. I cross over and take the track past a tiny thatched cottage. Although it looks like a whimsical teapot, there is something sinister about it, particularly now when the track is overgrown. It makes me feel that I'm being watched, perhaps by something not quite human. I hurry past, as I usually do, looking out for the dead crows which I have sometimes seen strung up on the fence posts. 'Keep dogs on a short lead' commands a faded sign. Why? What would I do if I had a short dog? I keep walking quickly, along the side of a drainage ditch, right at the top of the field and across the next field, which this year, I'm thankful to note, contains inoffensive, knee-high rye, rather than the neck-high, leg-tugging rape seed which grew here last year.
Through the orchard after the field and left past the pond at Averley Hall, I took the ruler-straight bridle path across another field towards Hagmore Green. Right through the hedge and down into the corner, where a tiny footbridge is almost permanently blocked by ankle-deep mud. Today, it was just about passable, but a fallen tree presented a new kind of obstacle. I climbed through it, disentangling hair, sunglasses, hat and boot-laces on the way. Up the green lane past the truncated farm house (apparently, most of it burnt down about a 100 years ago and what's left is a strange grandeur with no substance, like a theatre scene).
Rather than walk down the road, past the towering Douglas firs, I took the path on the left past the pair of old farmworkers' cottages and across the fields towards Stone Street. Both paths off to the right towards the houses of Stone Street are now blocked with rearsome nettles and thistles, so I went the long way round, up the steep hill and right, down along the side of a new garden which recent new owners are establishing. It is set out in neat, straight beds, apparently ready to grow vegetables, but at the moment all I saw was a sea of marigolds and lavender, perhaps planted as companion plants to distract pests from the cowering cabbages.
Through the water meadow in Stone Street, now no longer the home of Rocky the horse (or any other horse), the grasses long and lush, ungrazed but still benefitting from decades of horse manure. Up Wash Lane under the tunnel of hawthorn and wild plums which now meet in the middle, cutting out the sky. When I first moved to this area and walked here, a stunning display of wild flowers appeared on the bank at this time of year: poppies, ox-eye daisies, scabious and the sky blue stars of wild chicory. They have all been swallowed now by the hedge, but some of their descendants still appear each year on the bank at the top of the hill, fighting for a space among the invading alexanders.
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